seriously,, though: we don't have the luxury of an all-or-nothing propostion in the matter. wars are fought one battle at a time; you win the battle at hand, then you fight the next.Agreed. I don't understand all the rage that "it's not good enough", and "they should have said forget the whole thing" as if it is some huge failure. When here we have a government that has turned "incrementalism" into a fine art and we all understand they'll take each small victory they can and keep working to get everything they want.

To claim that not covering a $400 operation for a million people a year is more important than denying 50 million people safety from being ruined for life by a $100,000 operation is shortsighted at best.

Getting the "public option" off the ground is a sea change for the US, especially given the brokering system in place for legislation. Fine tuning what is covered and what is not is relatively normal ongoing tweaking. In Ontario, they "de-listed" eye exams and circumcisions a few years ago. And dental care (except life threatening situations) has never been covered by OHIP.

I suspect abortions and contraception will become covered soon enough. I don't see how access has been lessened by the passage of the health care bill.